For the previous post in this series, click here.

Minimum Standards
An established (not necessarily starting) team of shadowrunners ought to make sure every member has at least a minimum competency in a few areas: at least one combat skill for self-defense, some ability in the Stealth skill (with a specialization in Sneaking if you want to go farther with a few points), and some ability in the Biotech skill (with a specialization in First Aid to stretch points). If your GM is going to enforce the rules (on Page 247) that you need the Electronics skill to figure out how to turn the Wireless effects of your gear on and off (I certainly won’t be enforcing it—that’s too important a thing to do to require a skill point for it!), then a character ought to have at least one point in that as well.

Essential Gear
Even the core Shadowrun book has enough equipment in it to make one’s head spin, and purchasing equipment is often the longest phase of character creation. The Sixth Edition is no different.

For new players especially, it’s easy to lose track of (or to never find) a good explanation of what gear is absolutely necessary for a person to function. Here’s what you need:

Fake System Identification Number(s) (SINs)

Every Runner should have at least one fake SIN (System Identification Number). A SIN is required to use public services—like riding the bus—and in nicer parts of town, corporate security or local law enforcement will make a beeline for anyone who doesn’t have a SIN when scanned.

Your runner may have been born with a SIN (which I’d assume her to adequately have distanced herself from aside from tissue matches or fingerprinting, unless the SINner Quality is taken), but remember that anonymity, privacy and security are essential for a runner to survive long enough to make it big.

If you want to carry a gun, drive a car, or not be arrested for having restricted cyberware (or being Awakened), you need to make sure that you have the proper fake licenses attached to your Fake SINs.

The lowest Resources rating on the Priority Chart gives you 8,000¥ (before you spend any Karma). The least expensive Fake SIN (Rating 1 with no licenses) costs 2,500¥ and will stand up to only the most cursory examination (automated public transportation scans, etc.). Plan accordingly.

Commlink

The commlink is your phone, personal digital assistant, tablet and computer all rolled into one. You need to have one to survive in the modern age of the Sixth World. If all you can afford is a cheapie, by all means—but have one.

Lifestyle

Because it’s found earlier in the book and not in the Gear section, it’s easy to forget that you need to have a Lifestyle, which represents your monthly payments for food, shelter and basic services. Under most circumstances, a runner probably wants to maintain a Low Lifestyle—saving money for those things that will keep her alive or for that magical future day when she can retire from the life and live comfortably ever after. Remember, it’s cyberpunk: high tech and low life. But don’t be a Squatter.

If your character is the paranoid type, comes from a background in tradecraft, or has the resources and understanding of the risks of shadowrunning such that he or she would have at least one bolthole somewhere that no-one knows about, purchase multiple Lifestyles. Just remember that they have to be maintained, too.

Image Link, Sound Link and Micro-Transceiver

If your character doesn’t have cybereyes and/or cyberears, you need to shell out for at least a visual device with image link (Rating 1 Contacts with just this feature are 75¥) and an aural device (which automatically has sound link—Rating 1 earbuds are 50¥). You need a micro-transceiver, too. This equipment allows you to keep in constant contact with the rest of your team and to share valuable information. Communication and information sharing can be more valuable than wired reflexes and a Panther assault cannon if you’re clever.

Trauma Patch

Every character should probably carry one of these. They’re expensive (500¥), but necessary in a desperate situation to prevent loss of life. A shadowrunner team is many things, but they’re sometimes a team of covert(-ish) combat operators—and they should think like it. Every soldier carries at a bare minimum an IFAK (individual first aid kit) to treat the commonest types of injuries. A trauma patch isn’t a substitute for all of the devices, materials and life-saving techniques your team should have access to, but it’ll do in a pinch.

The Mechanics of the Build

What follows is my personal advice (along with my personal biases) on creating Shadowrun characters in the Sixth Edition after spending several hours with the character creation system.

What Do You Need to Know?

Before you make a character, you should get a feel for the world of Shadowrun in 2080 (Page 14 on) and the basics of the game mechanics (“Game Concepts” Chapter starting on Page 34). If you’re going to play an Awakened character, I recommend also reading the Magic Chapter (at least the basics, starting on Page 127)

Lay of the Land

For ease of navigation, some “bookmarks” for you:

• The Description of Attributes is on Page 37
• The Priority Table is on Page 63
• The Skills Chapter Starts on Page 92
• Qualities Begin on Page 66
• Adept Powers Start on Page 156
• Spells Start on Page 130
• Mentor Spirits on Page 162
• The Gear Listing Starts on Page 244
• Advancement Costs (for spending Karma) on Page 68
• Rules for Contacts on Page 66-67

Min/Max

Yes, I complained about the Archetypes being min/max-ed, but there’s actually a distinction here. The Archetypes are min/max-ed as to their final ability ratings and all of that, with very specific foci and almost no character resources spent outside of that focus.

The min/max-ing I’m referring to is in the expenditure of the 50 Karma points you get at character creation. Choose the upgrades that you’ll spend on and allocate your attribute points, skill points, etc. from the Priority Table with that in mind so that you maximize the value you get from that beginning Karma.

An example: Going from Firearm’s 5 to Firearms 6 is worth thirty Karma. Purchasing Electronics at 2 requires 15 Karma. Where should you allocate your Priority-Table-Given Skill Points? To your higher-rated skills, spending Karma to fill in gaps for basic necessities. Likewise with Attribute Point distributions.

As a matter of good gaming etiquette, I’d check with your GM about his or her stance on this behavior. As hard as I intend to be on my players, though, I’m happy to let them have this benefit.

As a side note, the discrepancy/ambiguity created by loose design in the use of Karma points to round things out might be viewed as a problem, and I would agree that it is while I’m looking at Shadowrun from a designer’s perspective. As a practical matter, though, just decide on an approach and keep running.

Specializations Are Your Friends

Specializations are cheap to purchase with Karma. So, don’t use Priority Table Skill Points to buy Specializations unless you really need to spend the Karma elsewhere. That said, use Specializations to push your character resources farther at character generation. Most characters are only going to need Pilot (Ground Vehicle) for instance, or Biotech (First Aid). If your character does not have combat as a primary focus, consider using specializations (say in Pistols and/or Unarmed Combat) to get some basic competency without devoting a lot of Skill Points.

Augmentation: Buy Once, Cry Once

It used to be that you could only purchase base-grade cyberware and bioware at character generation, but this was further back in the timeline; by 2080, apparently, even Delta-grade cyberware isn’t too hard to find.

According to the rules as written, you cannot purchase Illegal gear with an Availability of 7 or higher. Check with your GM to see if they’re going to modify this (frankly, it probably should be). If used as written, at least some of the cyberware you want to get your grubby hands on can be purchased at Delta-grade, or at least Alpha or Beta.

Contrary to the Archetypes in the book, you’re better off buying the best grade of hardware you can reasonably afford rather than dumping in base-grade. Why?

First, the higher the grade of cyberware, the harder it is to detect. That’s definitely to your benefit. As or more important, the higher the grade of cyberware, the less Essence it costs. Yes, you could have more bonuses and benefits if you just pack in basic cyberware and bioware, but you never get more Essence.

You can remove old cyberware and replace it with a higher grade, which will never raise your Essence back to what it was, but will leave a “gap” to be taken up before it drops further.

Example: You’ve got an Essence of .4 after putting in all your (basic-grade) cyber. You’ve scraped together some nuyen and if you want to take on more cyber, you need to make some room, you you’re going to buy a Beta-grade version of something you already have to replace it. The basic version cost you 1 Essence point, so the Beta-version will cost you .7 Essence. Your Essence stays at .4 after the replacement, but your total Essence cost on your Cyber is now 5.3 instead of 5.6, so you have an extra .3 worth of Essence to use up before your Essence drops below .4.

If you follow the example above, you’ve now paid 2.5 times the value of that piece of cyberware (1 time when you first bought it, and another 1.5 times when you bought the Betaware version). That adds up to a massive drain on your character’s lifetime nuyen.

Don’t Skimp on Edge

Edge is central to the new edition of Shadowrun in ways it has never been. You start each session with an amount of Edge equal to your Attribute rating and, if you have more Edge at the end of an encounter than your Attribute, you lose the excess. An Edge of 5 means that you can hold enough Edge at once for an alpha-strike use of the highest level of Edge expenditure when you need the boost.

That doesn’t mean that you need to have an Edge of 5, but I certainly wouldn’t want to run a character with less than 3. If you have to, spend Karma to boost it. Even if you have no points from the Priority Table to allocate to Edge, it would only cost 25 Karma to get it up to 3.

My initial feeling is that Edge is the new Initiative Augmentation in Shadowrun—don’t leave home without it.

Understand Attack Value and Defensive Value

Particularly if you’ve come from a previous version of Shadowrun, there’s a learning curve to grokking how AV and DV work in awarding Edge during a fight. As you pick your weapons, armor and augmentations, pay attention to AV and DV—they are, along with the fundamental overhaul of Edge, the New Big Thing. Choosing between a weapon with a one-point damage bonus and a higher AV is something to carefully consider.

Consider Initiative Augmentations Carefully

It used to be that characters with initiative augmentations vastly outclassed those that didn’t in combat. This is no longer the case—it now takes a Level 3 initiative augmentation to gain a second attack (or second Major Action of any type) in combat, and that’s the most you’ll ever get.

This is a very welcome rebalance, in my opinion, and it makes it worth considering whether you need such an augmentation—despite the change in the rules, these augs remain very expensive in terms of Essence and Nuyen (in Cyber-/Bioware) or Power Points (for Adepts).

The Archetypes have overused initiative augs, with half of them having one, even when the assets spend on those augs would be much better spent elsewhere.

If you look at the NPCs section of the book, you don’t see any initiative augs until Professional Tier 4 and above. My advice is only to consider an initiative aug if your primary role in the group is combat. Even then, I wouldn’t say that wired reflexes or a synaptic booster are a necessary piece of kit.

The Aptitude Quality

The Aptitude Quality, for 12 Karma, lets you start with a skill at Rating 7 (rather than the usual max of 6) and level it up to 10 (instead of 9). This is not necessarily a Quality every player should take for their character, but it does have the potential to save you a lot of Karma (if your GM doesn’t have a problem with this, if you are not committing the sin of overspecialization, and if your end character is adaptable enough to survive long enough that it matters).

It would cost you 35 Karma to raise a skill from 6 to 7. You’ll pay 12 Karma for the Quality, but this still nets you 23 Karma in the long run (not accounting for paying the skill point).

Where this really makes a difference is that you can then have other skills at Rating 6, rather than only being able to have one at Rating 6 and the rest at 5. This opens up a lot (a lot!) of additional potential Karma.

To make real use of this Quality, though, I think you need to take Priority A in skills. If that doesn’t mesh with your character idea, look for more suitable Qualities.

In the next post, look for my advice on specific types of characters.